Category Archives: Recipe

Spaghetti Carbonara Party

Posted on October 3, 2011 | 22 Comments

Hallo :)

I got an email today from Marlene (the star of Marlene’s Pink Warriors) letting me know that the total amount of money our team raised for Run for the Cure yesterday was over $30,000.

I had previously written over $25,000, but I thought I would let you guys know this update because THAT IS CRAZY. I can barely wrap my head around that number. Marlene is an awesome motivator, I will tell you that.

Spaghetti Carbonara

So my eats were pretty ho-hum today. Good, but nothing too exciting. A banana + peanut butter wrap for breakfast, leftover chicken noodle soup for lunch with a toasted whole wheat English muffin, and a ginormous salad for dinner, plus a few snacks thrown in.

All good eats for sure, but nothing too blog-worthy.

I’ll tell you what was blog-worthy though. My dinner on Saturday night.

My friend Lisa had a few friends over for a petite dinner party, including Ando and I, and she made us that delicious plate of spaghetti carbonara (<- go there if you would like to see the recipe. Lisa made hers with spaghetti instead of fettuccine, but I think that was her only change.)

It was really, really good. Really, really.

Just a note that it is not the healthiest of pastas. It does include heavy cream, bacon, cheese, and two egg yolks, but if you want to go all out, EAT THIS. It’s dynamite.

Sometimes it is so good it is okay not to care about the health factor, in my opinion. You better believe I cleaned my plate, and I didn’t go back for seconds only because I ate a ton of these before dinner:

Amazing Little Pastry Puffs

Little pastries full of cream cheese, bacon, and parsley that my friend Fran made. Those were also very good and extremely addicting.

And then there was the dessert table that I had to think about.

Dessert Spread

Cheesecake, the pumpkin spiced cookies and chocolate chip blondies that I brought, and these little Portuguese custard tarts (I can’t remember the name, but they were delicious!)

Lisa’s boyfriend and his brother are Portuguese and were raving on about those tarts, so I thought I should give them a try.

Tarty Goodness

And they were not wrong. They were amazing. Like custard-filled butter tarts!

And PS – the chickpea blondies? No one could tell they had chickpeas in them. I’m pretty sure they were a hit.

I had a great night with my two college pals :)

College Pals

I am off to read in bed. I am seriously so tired today and I have no idea why! I definitely want to get tangled up in the sheets early.

Have a great night!

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Posted in Dinner, Pals, Recipe

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Saturday Bakefest (Pumpkin Spiced Oatmeal Cookies + Healthy Blondies)

Posted on October 1, 2011 | 14 Comments

Hey, remember that time I said I didn’t like pumpkin?

I lied. I like it, and I like it quite a lot.

This morning after a 9:30 BodyPump class (which I loved, I always leave BodyPump feeling so strong!), I wandered into the Superstore on a super schweaty mission for pumpkin pie spice for a pumpkin cookie recipe I wanted to try out today.

I couldn’t find it anywhere! After consulting with my favourite baking guru…

Having blog friends is so helpful!

I realized that this was not a case of just being blind to the pumpkin pie spice (like how I missed the canned pumpkin), it probably wasn’t available in the Superstore at all.

I headed home to make my own, following Dawn’s advice. I googled a recipe to get the exact quantities of each spice, and found a good one on AllRecipes that I ended up using.

When I was raving on about pumpkin in my v-log, I asked you guys to post your fave pumpkin recipes. Meg from PinkGiggles posted one for Pumpkin Spiced Oatmeal Cookies that looked yummily intriguing to me.

She was not wrong. After making these cookies, they are truly the perfect amount of pumpkin spice-y goodness.

I followed SkinnyTaste’s recipe exactly, so check it out if you want to see it. Let me tell you, these cookies turned out amazing.

I loved them! Ridiculously yummy.

If (WHEN) I make these again the only change I’d make would be swapping whole wheat flour for white flour, but the other ingredients were bang-on. I loved these little cookies.

Bake-fest was not quite over just yet. I have a little dinner party tonight with my friends from college Fran and Lisa, as well as our respective lovers, and I am bringing the dessert.

So next up were Chocolate Chip Blondies that I made from Chocolate Covered Katie‘s recipe.

Chocolate Chip Blondies

They look pretty decadent, don’t they? They are DELICIOUS. Would you believe me if I told you they are also healthy?

Healthy Blondies?

It’s true. The main ingredient is chickpeas.

Chick Peas!

No lie. An entire can of chickpeas.

Mix

And peanut butter, brown sugar and flour. I had to sub the flour instead of ground flax into my mix, as I didn’t have any ground flax on-hand, but otherwise I followed Katie’s recipe exactly.

The most difficult part was mixing the chick peas, I would say, as the little peas wanted to stay in ball form and it was tricky to get them smoothy-smooth.

But after several minutes of mixing with an electric mixer, I was successful!

Mix, Pre Choco Chips

This recipe is genius. I can’t even explain to you how impressed I am with it. These blondies are moist, chewy and chocolatey. They taste like the real deal, and I could eat the entire pan and I wouldn’t even have to break out my fat pants. That, my friends, is a win.

Ando has already eaten four of them.

I’m excited to see how my pals like everything tonight! I’ll let ya know.

And I am off to get ready! Have a great Saturday!

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Posted in Baked Goods, Recipe

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A Gnocchi Newbie

Posted on September 27, 2011 | 15 Comments

Heyo.

I was so relieved to hear that I am not the only conehead out there who has trouble keeping headbands from squeezing off my head!  I’m not alone!

But I actually may not have as big of a conehead as I thought, and I think the problem may lie more with my fine, slippery hair. Last night my experiment worked!

Success!

As I posted on my Twitter and Facebook pages (yeah, a shameless self plug. I know you want to follow me), a little bit of grease in my hair, and texture from my overnight braid, was all it took. The BIC Band successfully stayed put all throughout my bootcamp class.

It barely slipped at all, and there was tons of jumping around going on. I was pumped, and felt much more confident than that time my hair elastic broke and I had to raw dog it with my hair down all casual Friday, throwing my head around like a stripper (which you may remember, gave me a huge kink in my neck the next day).

Carnival Eats

Today at lunchtime there was a hotel tradeshow going on in my building that included free lunch. Since I love free food, and any activity that includes a free lunch, I abandoned my leftover Santa Fe Chicken and wandered down with my coworker Beth to see what kind of eats were kicking around.

At the smaller lunch tradeshows, I can usually slip in, score a quick plate and a cookie, and slip back out, but this one was a big affair. There were 20 hotels there, and it was one of those tradeshows where you go around with a little “passport” and get the vendors to sign it. Only once it is signed can you enter into a draw, and then get your lunch.

I’ll do pretty much anything for a free lunch, so I hit up every booth, and listened to all their spiels. It took about 20 minutes but I left with this:

Free Lunch!

The food was carnival themed, and included hotdogs, slider burgers, corn dogs, potatoes (I don’t know why potatoes), macaroni salad, cole slaw (which I am not really a fan of), popcorn, cookies and cake pops.

Yummy Little Pop

Cake pops were definitely the highlight! I scored a cookie with that as well :) .

I couldn’t clean my lunch plate. I don’t like to complain, especially not about food, and especially not about free food, but…it wasn’t great. Nearly everything was cold. The best food item may have been the corn dog, which I didn’t even think I would like.

Pretty unhealthy lunch also…but ah well, free lunches can’t always be the best lunches ever! After my weekend of treats though, this really needs to stop happening.

At least I got a bag of “swag”! (read: business cards and brochures)

Swag-Bag

Oh okay, and Malteaers, which I haven’t dug into just yet…

A Gnocchi Newbie

So I tried gnocchi tonight for the first time, which if you don’t know (and I didn’t really) is a little potato dumpling.

I saw gnocchi on sale in the grocery store over the weekend, and I’ve been meaning to try it out for a while, so I decided to pick some up.

Tonight I chose to make kind of a gnocchi pasta with a marinara veggie sauce topped with parmesan cheese.

Gnocchi Yumminess

I sautéed half a small yellow onion and two cloves of garlic with a teaspoon of olive oil, before adding a chopped red bell pepper and two handfuls of baby spinach. Once everything was cooked through, I added a jar of Prego pasta sauce and continued cooking until everything was nice and warm. I then added it to the gnocchi. And then I ate it.

Plate O' Gnocchi (looks kinda gross...but you guys like it)

I was a fan!  It was yummy and surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly) filling…I once again could not completely clean my plate. Ando was a gnocchi newbie as well, and I think I turned him into a lover!

Welp, I’m off to watch The Walking Dead. Alejandrew and I started watching the first season last night and I am already hooked. It’s a bit on the scary side, but I like it! And apparently it makes TrueBlood look like iCarly (according to the promos, which made me laugh).

Questions of the Evening

  • Have you tried gnocchi, and are you a fan?
  • How far have you gone to score free food?

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Posted in Dinner, Recipe

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Conehead Woes

Posted on September 26, 2011 | 27 Comments

So…it looks as though I may have a conehead.

Every time I try to wear a workout hairband/sweat band (are they still called sweat bands?!) it starts out all good above my forehead and then slowly works its way off of my head.

Every. Time.

I want to wear a band when I work out so badly, and I am so jealous when I see people successfully sporting these bands, but it never works out for me.

I have tried every kind.

The two black bands are just from Goody, and so far those have been the worst.  They slip off my head in seconds.  The green Lululemon band isn’t much better.  I have had mild success with the multicoloured Lulu one, because that one has rubber grip underneath.  I wore it on my 5k, but still had to put it back on twice as I was running, because it also slipped off.  Stupid bands.  Stupid conehead.

One time when our intern Mary was still working in our office (I MISS MARY!!! :( She was my partner in crime!), we were about to go take part in lunchtime yoga and she fixed me a band made of athletic tape to hold my hair back.

She assured me that all of the girls on her rugby team wore athletic tape on their heads while they were playing, and she had never seen one slip off (and rugby is ROUGH).

It worked better than any of the previously mentioned bands…but 20 minutes in (and remember this is just yoga), it was sloooooowly starting to slip off my head.  I looked over at Mary while in downward dog and she stared back at me, shocked.  She may have mouthed the word “freak” at me, but I can’t be sure.

Coneheads are severely unattractive, so I’d like to think that’s not why the bands are slipping off my head… although…

But I think it may also be because of my extremely fine and thin hair.  There is just no grip to it at all, and nothing for the band to hold onto.  I thought I was destined to never be able to wear a head band.

Until I heard of the BIC band (don’t get too excited, this story doesn’t have a happy ending just yet).

BIC Band

In following other blogs, I heard all about the BIC band craze.  Everyone, EVERYONE who has tried a BIC band says they stay put…for some people an entire marathon!

The website says:

B.I.C. Bands are headbands that will not slip~ (SERIOUSLY!) They are great for any workout, a trip to the coffee shop, going out with friends, work….
you name it, your B.I.C. Band will keep your hair looking FAB! They are headbands that stay in place and help others win their race!

Sounds pretty awesome, right?  Except for that bit about helping others win the race…shouldn’t it stay in place to help YOU win the race?  Anyway.

I was excited.  I thought maybe I had found the ticket out of my endless searching for a band that would stay in place on my conehead/slippery hair.  I was going to order one.

But then, a miracle happened, and I entered Alyssa @ Life of Blyss‘s BIC Band giveaway, and guess what?  I WON.

Sparkle Bic

I chose the pink sparkly BIC band, and anxiously awaited its arrival, thinking my days of having hair in my face were over.

It arrived, and I immediately put that sucker on and went for a run.

Excited for my Band!

And guess what?  It slipped off.  Not immediately.  In fact, it stayed on longer than probably any other band I’ve ever tried.  But still, it slowly slipped off my conehead/slippery hair.  Son of a…

I was disappointed.

Disappointment

What the frig?

So tonight I am doing an experiment.  I have boot camp tonight and I want to wear the band.  Last night I showered before I went to bed and braided my hair so that it would be “kinky” today.  I even put a bit of mousse in it to help it out.  I am hoping that this gives my hair a bit of texture and therefore more grip for the band.

That is my “I mean serious business face” so it better stay in place.

I am off to boot camp to check this out!  I will report back with my findings.

In the meantime…

I have a recipe for you!

I knew I didn’t have a lot of time tonight to make dinner, so I used my trusty slow cooker to create an easy and delicious dish!

Yummers

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken!  I originally say the recipe on Skinny Taste, but I made some changes to mine so it would be a little more like a soup.  You can click here to view the original recipe, and here is mine with my modifications:

Crock Pot Sante Fe Chicken

  • 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 can diced tomatoes (mine had celery and green pepper added)
  • 1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
  • 1 cup frozen corn
  • 1 small yellow onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 can low-sodium chicken broth (actually probably more than that for me, I had some in the fridge in a carton that I wanted to use up)
  • 1/2 – 1 cup salsa (I didn’t measure, so I’m just guessing here)
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp hot red pepper flakes (to taste)
  • salt to taste

Combine everything in the crock pot.  I put my chicken breasts in frozen and then shredded them when I got home and added them back into the mix.

It was awesome!

I had a whole wheat English muffin on the side for dipping purposes.

Alright, off to boot camp!  Wish me luck!

Questions of the evening:

  • Do any of you have trouble getting workout bands to stay on your head?
    Please tell me I’m not alone!
  • If you do, have you found a brand that works?

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Posted in Dinner, Random Musings, Recipe, Tips

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Like Warm Blueberry Pie

Posted on September 11, 2011 | 9 Comments

Hello friends, happy Sunday!

When I awoke this morning, I had only one thing on my mind…pancakes!

Yummy Little Cakes

I’ve been making the same oatmeal pancake recipe for a while now, so today I thought I would switch it up a bit.  I bought a couple pints o’ blueberries yesterday so I thought blueberry pancakes would be the perfect way to use some up.

I didn’t want to throw blueberries into any ol’ pancake mix though, I wanted a healthified version, so I browsed around a bit before settling on a recipe for Blueberry Pie Pancakes from Chocolate Covered Katie.

They truly tasted like blueberry pie in pancake form.  So delicious.  And with whole wheat flour, oatmeal, and more than a cup of blueberries in these babies, they are a healthfest as well as a yumfest!

Like Warm Blueberry Pie

I followed Katie’s recipe exactly, except I used brown sugar to replace the stevia, and my mix was looking a little dry, so I added an egg.  I am not vegan, so this worked out well for me.  I also doubled the recipe to make six insanely thick pancakes instead of three.

I layered mine with PC honey Greek yogurt and pure maple syrup and dug in!

Impossibly Yummy

Perfect Sunday breakfast.

I just want to quickly share a video with you guys.  I heard a new song on one of the satellite Galaxie stations the other day and I liked it immediately, so I looked up the video, and my like quickly turned to love!

I love simple videos that actually have something to do with the lyrics.  And I love that these guys used all their friends to make this.  Sounds like something I would do… I have a feeling Acres of Lions is about to blow up in a big way.

Enjoy your Sunday!

What are your favourite kind of pancakes?

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Posted in Breakfast, Recipe

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Selectively Busy (+ Pork & Broccoli Stir Fry)

Posted on September 1, 2011 | 13 Comments

Holla holla!

So if you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I was having quite the love burst for my lunch today.

A while back I made these delicious little pita’s filled with cottage cheese, Prego pasta sauce, mozzarella cheese, and baby spinach.  Because of my work’s beautiful toaster oven, I was able to recreate this dish fo’ lunch!

Pita Za

I wasn’t watching it while it was in there and it almost got burnt (I really can’t stand the taste of burnt, at all), but it was just a little blackness and I was able to scrape it off.  Phew.

This lunch hit ze spot!  Who says packed work lunches have to be boring?!

Yummers in my Tummers

Also, isn’t my plate cute?

Minus being backwards?  Silly computer camera.

I found it in our lunch/storage room.  I know I’m not using it properly (and I think it is old so I don’t know how “proper” it is anymore), but I like it.

I also had a leftover cob of corn from last night’s dinner on the side that went unpictured (and should have gone on the vegetable slot).

Selectively Busy

A few of my friends have commented lately on how busy I am, or I guess how busy I seem to be.  While this is true, I am a busy beaver (especially at work right now – it is almost overwhelming), I have to confess something.

I am selectively busy.

I purposely do not make a lot of plans during the week.  I am rarely busy at dinnertime, for example, because I like to be home for dinner.  If I’m not home, or I’m out late, chances are I’ll eat crappily.  This is cool once in a while, but the majority of time I just like to be at home, eating my own dinner that I made.

I am lucky enough to get home from work around 5-5:30 pm, and that is just the way I like it.  This is why exercising right after work doesn’t really work for me.  If I do that, I may not get home until 7, and that is just too late for me to eat.  My hunger monster will surely make an appearance and I will eat everything in sight without thinking twice.

I eat at 6, it works for me, and that’s how I like it.  I like my routine.

I also don’t enjoy feeling like dinner has to be a big rush because I have plans later.  So I may skip out on coffee with friend or something, but it may not be because I’m “busy.”  It is probably because I just want to be at home eating dinner.

So I will never be a chef, because I like to be home for dinner, making things like this:

Stir Fried Deliciousness

Pork and broccoli stir fry!  This was tonight’s dinner and it was simple and a big yumfest.  It was kind of like pseudo Chinese food!

I stir fried strips of pork loin with a bit of olive oil, garlic, broccoli and green onions, before adding chow mein noodles to the mix.  I threw in about two teaspoons of soy sauce to give the dish a little flava, and it was good to go!

And Again

Ando said he really liked this dish because it wasn’t too saucy.  If he ever complains about something I make (minus it having too much cilantro), it is because it is “too saucy”.

I am a saucy little minx for sure and I typically eat things FOR the sauce, but ol’ Andy-roo likes his food to be a bit more on the plain side.  I have learned to tone my sauciness down a little ;) , but since sauces are where all the extra calories are typically hiding out, I guess this is for the better.

I am outta here, but I hope you all have a fab ALMOST Friday!!!

Questions of the Evening:

  • What time do you eat dinner?
  • Do you purposely not make plans during the week so you are home at dinnertime?

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Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Random Musings, Recipe

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